Thursday, January 17, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI has canceled his visit to Rome's secular La Sapienza university following a protest letter signed by 67 of 4,500 professors and complaints by thousands of students that he devalues science.

Such a cancellation of a scheduled papal event is extremely rare, and the few times it has happened in recent decades, the Vatican cited security concerns. When news of the cancellation reached the campus on Tuesday, students in a political sciences hall broke into applause.

The faculty letter to the university rector, opposing the visit, cited 1990 remarks by the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, describing the church's trial of Galileo as "rational and just." Thousands of the university's 145,000 students demonstrated and strung up banners reading, "Science is secular" and "No pope."

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Like all bullies, Ratzy is basically a coward. He canceled the visit to the University apprehending a threat from University professors and students, hardly violent insurgents! Whatever happened to loving "inter faith dialogue"? It implies that the Vatican understands quite well when to back off, i.e. when some serious padre butt kicking takes place! Of course, the ROL is the very anti-thesis of reason and rationalism. Ratzy devalues science simply by being the Pope. Actually, he would be devaluing science merely by ascribing to and propagating the christist cult. So, the next time Ratzy decides to land up in India for "soul harvesting", these are legitimate secular grounds for GOI to deny the vampire a visa.